Natural snare sound - views & tips please

[martyfireball]

Hi guys, Just recorded another band...and I seem to have trouble with the snare again.
Please have a listen to the clip at
http://www.martyfireball.f2s.com/ferox/condemned-snare-leave.mp3
and voice your opinions, hints, tips, advice etc.
Thanks in advance.

It's quite a decent snare (can't remember the details...i'll find out), miked from the top with a SM57 into a Focusrite Voicemaster pro, which I think I used a hint of compression on and maybe a hint of "tube sound", into a Terratec phase 88 soundcard. The MP3 is unprocessed..i.e no additional compression, EQ etc.

 

[deconjoe]

It said ----- The requested song is not available yet

 

[martyfireball]

Sorry, dodgy link. It's fixed now.

 

[James Murphy]

looking at your pics in the your previous thread one thing you could do to improve your overall snare sound in the mix is to point the pick-up patterns of your overheads away from the snare and towards the cymbals.. here's an example pic from a recent ghetto-style session i did with my mobile rig of Chimaira's drummer in his band's rehearsal space.

aim pickup patterns towards the the 2 largest groups of cymbals left and right of the throne and and away from the snare. follow the 3:1 principle and you won't have phase issues at all.. and your overheads will have excellent separation.. trying to do XY pairs directly over the drummers head just leads to too much snare in the mix usually.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Sorry but what is this 3:1 principle ? This seems like something we should know

 

[James Murphy]

Sorry but what is this 3:1 principle ? This seems like something we should know

when micing "one source" with two mics keep each mic at least 3 times as far from each other as each one is from the source. an example would be that if one mic is 1/3rd meter from the source then the second mic should be at least one full meter from the first mic.

 

[martyfireball]

Cheers James. I should've made it clearer that the other post of mine is a different drummer and set-up. Excellent advice though.
Much Apprechiated.

 

[DIOBOLIC5150]

when micing "one source" with two mics keep each mic at least 3 times as far from each other as each one is from the source. an example would be that if one mic is 1/3rd meter from the source then the second mic should be at least one full meter from the first mic.

You have no idea how much that just helped my drum sound. Thanks dude! That was something I totally didn't know.

 

[estigma2001]

wow that was killer thanks a lot James, i wanna hear you in band!!!!! again!!!

 

[ATGuitar_NInja]

Right on James you are teh man. Good advice from a knowledgable technical wizaad.

 

[blackcom]

when micing "one source" with two mics keep each mic at least 3 times as far from each other as each one is from the source. an example would be that if one mic is 1/3rd meter from the source then the second mic should be at least one full meter from the first mic.

On a drumkit, what would this "one source" be, the snare, a horizontal "line" above all cymbals, I don't get it??

 

[Ermz]

I'd assume it'd be whatever you're pointing the mic at. Each cluster of cymbals would be your 'source', by my understanding. As long as you keep 3 times the distance between the mics, as they each individually have with their cluster, you should be fine.

 

[Kenny Lee]

here's an example pic from a recent ghetto-style session i did with my mobile rig of Chimaira's drummer in his band's rehearsal space.

Hahahahaha.........
James that actually ended up sounding pretty darn good for the band he did that for!!!


Kenny

 

[Radd]

Wow, that's Chimaira's x-drummer now. Good to have Andols back but I hope Kevin gets a place somewhere cool. As good as he is he deserves it. He's touring with The Red Chord this year.
I had bought some of his dvds that he sells on ebay including his drum instruction paired with his try out for Slayer. Awesome stuff indeed.
He seems like a real cool guy too.

 

[cameltoe]

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